Like our advice for the best ergonomic keyboard, you are going to need to try a few and find what works best for your work style, desk setup, hand size, computer platform, type of work, and a million other factors.

However, we can recommend the best ergonomic mouse for most people.

You can use the following table as a super quick guide to get in and grab a recommendation without much time.

You can’t go wrong with these recommendations. If you have time, below this table is our summary of all types of ergonomic mice and we recommend skimming the rest of the page to see if something catches your attention and should be on your consideration list to find your best ergonomic mouse.

The Best Guide To Ergonomic Mice

Want to dig in a little deeper? Below is our great big guide to all kinds of mouse options. We suggest reading through and seeing what jumps out. If you can bug a colleague who has one or visit a retailer that carries one, you may be one of the lucky few who can try before you buy. That probably won’t be true for you so we recommend you check the return policy of the retailer of your choice to make sure you can switch if the fit is not right.

If you know what you’re looking for, feel free to jump to the right section:

The Usual Suspects – You’ll recognize these, or their close cousins, if you’ve ever shopped for a mouse.

The Arm Wrestlers – Straighten up that wrist! Many popular designs are focused on making your arm a blunt instrument.

What Makes A Mouse Ergonomic?

If there were a device to measure the objective ergonomic benefit of a particular computer peripheral, choosing the one for you would be easy.

You could simply look for the highest “ergonomic index” available, buy that, and ignore everything else. But of course this won’t work, because there is no objective standard of “ergonomicness,” anymore then there is an objective standard of comfort for shoes (or an actual English word “ergonomicness,” for that matter).

Different things work for different people, and that principle is not going to change anytime soon.

Your job is not to figure out what works for most people; it’s to figure out what works for you. But in doing that, it’s also helpful to have a basic understanding of the most common factors affecting user comfort.

Wrist Movement

Many ergonomic mice are designed with the idea of reducing wrist movement.

The reasoning behind this, while not shared by everyone, is simple: bending your wrist is what tends to deform the channels through which nerves run, so if you can stop bending your wrist, you are less likely to impinge a nerve.

It’s the same reason that people wear braces for carpal tunnel syndrome. (Not that braces are necessarily a good solution, but now we’re getting into medical territory.)

While I don’t know of an ergonomic mouse that comes with a brace to keep your wrist straight, many are designed to produce a sort of “invisible brace.”

If a mouse is made large enough and shaped correctly, it becomes easier to control by moving your arm than by bending your wrist.

The Airobic is an example of a large mouse designed to be moved with your whole arm. Precise motions are difficult – but so is the “wrist flick” often blamed for carpal tunnel syndrome.

Precision

When the focus is on reducing wrist movement, one thing typically goes overboard: precision.

While your arm is big and powerful, it is not made for doing precise tasks. For example, imagine trying to write with your arm in a cast from fingers to elbow.

You could probably do it, but only in very big letters. It’s the same with mouse control.

You can accomplish quite a bit using the large muscles of your arms, but you may struggle with precise tasks like pixel-perfect work in Photoshop.

If your work involves many such tasks, you may prefer an ergonomic mouse design that reduces wrist movement the other way – by transferring the load to your fingers.

Pronation

Most ergonomic mice make an effort to get your palm out of the horizontal plane. Some go entirely vertical; others, like the Rockstick shown here, choose a compromise angle.

To understand pronation, sit down in front of a desk or table about elbow height, and lay your hands comfortably on the table in front of you.

Now look at your hands. If they are totally flat, with palms straight out on the table, then you are either a very unusually shaped person, or else you didn’t really relax.

Because of the way the human body is built, it requires effort to flatten your palm in a downward position.

This effort isn’t very large, but the strain can build up significantly over time if you use a mouse that puts your palm straight down.

At the other end of the spectrum from pronation is the vertical mouse position.

While putting your hand at 90 degrees gets it as far as possible from total pronation, it must be noted that straight vertical is not the most natural and comfortable position for most people either.

Rather, the hands of most users will land somewhere between zero and 90 degrees when relaxed.

Different mouse manufacturers choose different angles to proclaim the “most natural.” If you can’t decide which is right, you’ll be glad to know that at least one (Oyster) makes the angle adjustable.

Okay, enough theory. Let’s look at some products.

The Usual Suspects

Evoluent VM4R Vertical Mouse – Best Personalized Vertical Mouse

If you are a “righty” looking for a good quality vertical mouse that works for you – rather than making you work for it – then check out this innovative mouse solution from Evoluent.

This mouse supports your hand in a vertical upright position, preventing you from bending your wrist in a way that is terrible for its long-term health. You are encouraged to use your whole forearm to move the mouse, but you can also move it by moving your wrist in a healthier up and down action (as opposed to side to side).

Unlike a lot of other vertical mice you will see, it has a broad lip around the edge that prevents your pinky from rubbing uncomfortably against the table.

This mouse is for “righties” only, which you might think is not a problem if you are right handed. But if you ever have anyone who wants to pop over and show you something important quickly, and they happen to be a “lefty”, then you are both out of luck. We would also have liked this mouse to be wireless, as everything is better wireless, but as far as ergonomics go, it is good.

The mouse is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and you can just plug in the USB and go. But if you want to personalize your mouse, you can use the mouse management software to set what the buttons do, and you can also adjust the speed of the cursor to work best for you.

Microsoft Sculpt

As part of its renovated Sculpt ergonomic line, Microsoft has rolled out a mouse to go with their distinctive second-generation keyboard (the one that looks like a manta ray). If the keyboard is a manta ray, then I suppose the mouse must be clam. Or maybe it’s just a smooth rock, with one corner notched out by erosion. The surprising thing about this very simplistic looking design is that it is actually very comfortable to use. Like many large mice, the Microsoft Sculpt fills up your hand completely, leaving your fingers hanging over the front and a relaxed position.

Clicking this mouse is very easy, and actually reminds me quite a bit of the nearly-effortless Contour action. This isn’t so much because of the buttons themselves as because of the aforementioned shape; your fingers, being stretched out and free to move from their largest basic joints, can attack the buttons at maximum advantage. This is in contrast to small, finger-curling mice which tend to be clicked with the outmost and weakest joint of the finger.

As a step above the “any old ergonomic mouse” we mentioned earlier, you could do a lot worse than the Microsoft Sculpt. And if the Sculpt keyboard has caught your fancy anyway, you might as well spend a bit extra to get the whole set, and the benefit of a common receiver for the two devices.

If you are looking for a vertical mouse to support your lower arm and wrist while gaming, but don’t want to sacrifice on game performance, then this mouse from ZLOT is worth investigating.

It has an ergonomic vertical design that keeps your lower arm and wrist in the ideal vertical position to avoid long-term damage. It feels comfortable and smooth in the hand. It also glides smoothly across the mouse pad with a Pixart PMW3325 IR optical sensor that has five adjustable levels.

The mouse comes with five buttons and a joystick, which gives you eleven different clicks on this mouse. All of these are customizable, so you can get the mouse set up perfectly for your favorite games. The only problem with the buttons is that if you have very small hands, they might not all be within easy clicking distance for you.

Compatible with Windows and Linux, we would have preferred for this mouse to be wireless, but it comes with 1.8 meters of cord, so there is still plenty of flexibility. It also has a sleep mode, so it won’t bring your computer to life when accidentally knocked. Combine this with a 10-million click button life and a one-year warranty, and this mouse has a lot of good things going for it.

VicTsing Wireless Ergonomic Mouse – Best For Versatility

If you are looking for optimum comfort while using your mouse, but you aren’t keen on switching to a vertical mouse, then this option for VicTsing is a great solution. It is also extremely versatile and can pretty much be used anywhere, anytime.

While it looks like a normal mouse, it has been designed to sit comfortably within the contours of your hand. It is also made from anti-sweat and anti-slip material, so you don’t lose performance if you are using it for long periods of time. Speaking of performance, you can set the speed and responsiveness of the mouse, which has five different DPI settings available, all accessible with the click of a button on the mouse. This mouse is incredibly easy to use; just plug it in and use it without the need for any drivers. It is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The mouse is wireless with a range of up to about 50 feet, and the single AA battery needed to power it can last up to about 15 months. One of the reasons it is so power effective is that it has an automatic sleep mode, and it will turn itself off and on with the attached computer.

This is probably one of the most comfortable mice you will find without upgrading to a vertical mouse solution.

Redragon M908 Impact RGB LED MMO Mouse – Best For Precision Gaming

The Redragon is another gaming mouse that has been specially designed to feel good in your hand and minimize strain on your wrist, without you having to adapt to an alternative vertical mouse solution.

But while the manufacturers have focussed on ergonomics, they have not sacrificed anything as far as game performance is concerned. The optic laser adjusts up to 12400 DPI, and has a 1000 Hz polling rate, 30G acceleration, and precision Pixart PMW3327 sensor. The backlight can be programmed with 16 million color options, or disabled, and there are 18 programmable buttons.

There are five memory profiles on the mouse, so you can have it set up for whatever suite of games you are playing at the moment. You can even chance the weight of this mouse to optimize it for whatever you are doing with an eight-piece weight tuning set.

While we always prefer our mice to be wireless, this wired mouse comes with 6 ft. of cable, so you shouldn’t feel restricted in what you are doing. Compatible with Windows and Mac, and with TEFLON feet pads, this is really a high-quality gaming mouse with an ergonomic design, rather than being an ergonomic mouse you can also use for gaming.

The Arm Wrestlers (Fingers Need Not Apply)

These are the mice we talked about earlier – the ones that do their best to save you from carpal tunnel (and from yourself) by paralyzing your wrist. While this may sound unpleasant, all the mice on this page are easy to use as long as you don’t require a high degree of precision.

Nulaxy Wireless Vertical Ergonomic Mouse – Best First Vertical Mouse

While we know the benefits of using a vertical mouse, adjusting to actually use one is not as easy as it seems after years and years of using a normal mouse. This vertical mouse from Nulaxy is a nice transition mouse. It is vertical enough to give you the benefits of a vertical mouse, but it is not a million miles away from a traditional mouse.

The ergonomic vertical design will help hold your lower arm and wrist in a vertical position to prevent you from doing damaging side-to-side motions with your wrist, but it doesn’t feel that different from using a normal mouse. This does mean that those with larger hands might find their pinky rubbing on the table as they get used to the mouse.

It is also a powerful machine, with adjustable precision up to 1600 DPI and six programmable buttons. It works with Windows and Linux, and can also be used with Mac, but some of the button functionality is lost.

It has a rubbery matte finish, which is very comfortable, but also doesn’t pick up fingerprints or smudges, so it always looks good. The icing on the cake? It’s wireless. It has a super-fast 2.4G wireless transition and is reliable at up to 10 meters.

If you find your palms are the biggest problem when it comes to using your mouse, with the wrist joint bone uncomfortably rubbing against the desk while you work, then this joystick-style vertical mouse can do a lot for you. It comes with a well-designed palm rest that is also detachable for the moments when you need a little bit more mobility.

This vertical mouse with a joystick-style design feels like a handshake. It has both finger and thumb buttons, and it gives a lot more clicking options than on a standard mouse. It also comes in two sizes – the V628 for medium to large hands and the V628M for small to medium hands – so you don’t have the problem of the mouse being too big or too small for your hands, which can often be an issue.

Underneath all of this, it is a powerful, good quality mouse that is compatible with Windows and Linux and is just plug and go, no fiddling around, but unfortunately, it is not wireless. It uses powerful optical tracking technology for precision, and you can adjust the DPI up to 1600 depending on whether you are working or gaming. You get a one-year warranty, so you can feel confident in the value of your purchase.

AirO2bic

As far as I know, there is only one mouse that combines enforced arm movement with a 90° vertical design. That mouse is the AirO2bic, formally known as the Quill mouse. Everything I have said about the Handshoe and Contour mouse applies here: it requires lots of room to move, and works best at low speeds on small monitors. It also suffers from buttons that are, in my opinion, rather difficult to click, so the use of click-free software is recommended with this mouse.

AirO2bic is another product that has probably passed its heyday. With multiple monitors the norm and more innovative designs taking over, I don’t see too much of a market slot for it anymore. However, it may provide a saving grace for people who are desperate, but not quite desperate enough to use a foot mouse.

I cannot speak for the current supply situation on the Airobic mouse, as its inventor passed away a few years ago, and I have not talked to anyone responsible for the product since my conversations with him. It does seem to be available from some online retailers.

If you like your ergonomic mice wireless, but you also like your ergonomic wireless mice to work really, really well, then check out this option from TechNet. It is not a vertical mouse, so it is not as good for your wrists as some other options, but it has a good, contoured shape with nice rubber grips, which makes it easier for you to use a traditional mouse in the best way possible for your hands and wrists.

It is easy to set up for both Windows and Linux, just plug it in and go, but it does mean that it is less customizable than some other mice. What is customizable is the DPI, up to a pretty high 2600 DPI. Combined with its TeckNet Tru-Wave technology, you get precision tracking on pretty much any surface.

But where this mouse stands out is with just how good the wireless functionality is. With 2.4G wireless, you get precision without delay up to 15 meters away. It needs only two AAA batteries, and these will last the average user up to 24 months.

Part of the reason the battery life is so good is that it has an intelligent sleep mode. It will switch itself on and off with the PC to which it is linked, so there is also no need to reconnect every time you want to use the mouse.

DXT

If I could put just one ergonomic device on every desk in the world, it would probably be a DXT mouse. In a design that’s smaller than an ordinary mouse – and just as intuitive to use – the DXT smoothly corrects some of the worst problems with conventional pointing devices. It’s not just the vertical shape, which gets your palm out of that flat posture ergonomists love to hate. Lots of ergonomic mice are vertical, but few are so precise and easy to manipulate that you feel like you’re using a pen. Even fewer have ambidexterity built in, plus switching between four DPI settings for maximum flexibility.

If there’s a downside to the DXT, that downside would be in its lack of buttons relative to certain other mice such as the Evoluent. The DXT has just two, plus center-click on scroll. The buttons it has are quality, though, with click force issues from earlier editions addressed in the latest DXT mouse. And of course, the number of buttons involves a tradeoff; if the DXT had more, you’d lose the tiny footprint and pen-like precision that help to make this neat little mouse what it is. There’s much to be said for a minimal device that does just one or two important things, and does them right.

Evoluent

This is the fighter jet of ergonomic mice, with so many buttons and options you’ll never run out of new ways to use it. It also claims the title of the first true vertical mouse on the market. The Evoluent vertical mouse puts your hand at 90° to the desk, completely counteracting pronation. It is a large design – too large to be moved with just your fingertips. This makes it less precise by nature than the DXT, but it also allows the Evoluent mouse to have lots and lots of buttons – five in all, including the click on the scroll wheel. Evoluent also distinguishes itself with a really nice driver program, which allows you to reassign all those buttons on a per program basis. Designers, developers, and other power users can take this strategy as far as they like.

Logitech M705 Marathon Wireless Mouse – Best Long-Life Mouse

This comfortable, sculpted shape of this mouse is ideal if you are looking for some extra support for your palm but you want to stick with a relatively traditional mouse design. Not everyone is ready to make the leap to the vertical mouse. It uses a contoured rubber grip and full palm support for optimum ergonomic comfort.

The mouse is designed to let you do as much as possible without having to move around and strain your wrist. This includes hyperfast scrolling and horizontal tilt wheel as well as seven customizable buttons.

While the ergonomic value of a wireless mouse is indisputable, receptiveness and battery life are always a question mark. But Logitech has cracked it. The unifying USB receiver and precision optical tracking mean the mouse is reliable up to a range of 10 meters (but if you are looking to connect via Bluetooth, you are out of luck).

The charge on this mouse will also last you three years, so there should be no concerns about it running out of juice on you.

The mouse is optimized to work with both Windows and Mac, with all the clicks customizable on both platforms. You do need to choose between a right- or a left-handed mouse, so there is no sharing with colleagues of the other persuasion.

But if you are looking for a mouse that will have a long life, and long health for your wrists, this Logitech option is a great choice.

3M Ergonomic Mouse

I am including the 3M ergonomic mouse mostly because I previously reviewed it on this blog. Objectively, there’s not much about this mouse that others don’t do at least as well. The 3M mouse is a fixed-platform vertical mouse, which means that your whole hand is supposed to rest on the mouse while you’re using it. In this respect it is quite similar to the old Airobic mouse – only instead of a full-body grip structure, the 3M has a joystick-like “post” in the middle to wrap your fingers around. Clicking is done with a button on top of this post, and alternate click functions are accessed through buttons on the side.

That’s it for mice, as such. Now let’s look at the wonderful world of trackballs and rollers.

Trackballs And Rollers

Yes, these are not technically mice (even though one of them goes by the name), but the stationary roller/ball devices are worth checking out too. In this section, in fact, is my own current weapon of choice: the Contour RollerMouse Red.

Kensington Expert Mouse (Which Is Actually A Trackball)

Trackballs, which appeared a lot in the computer advertisements from the 1990s, seem to be getting a new lease on life with the multiple-large-monitors setup that is becoming typical these days. This may be because trackballs can “scroll infinitely,” i.e. you never run out of room as with a mouse. Among trackballs, the Kensington Expert is often mentioned as an “ergonomic” choice, mostly due to its large operational component – a ball the same size as the one used in billiards. Having a large ball just “feels” better, and provides tangible benefits in precision.

Issues with the Kensington Expert include its very unhuman-looking shape; no comfortable curves, though the company took a stab at ergonomics with a padded wrist rest you can attach to the trackball. However, this wrist rest does not resolve all the issues. The trackball is still sloped upward away from the user, which tends to make the wrist angle back unhealthily unless the work surface is really high up.

When it comes to its buttons and scroll wheel, the news is both good and bad. There are four buttons, and all of them can be programmed using Kensington software. However, due to the shape of the unit, none of these buttons is in an area that is particularly easy to get to while you are using the thing. Also, the scroll wheel tends to be very “rough,” feeling like sand has somehow gotten into its bearings. However, it should also be noted that most trackballs do not have a scroll wheel at all.

Kensington Orbit Trackball

While the Kensington Orbit doesn’t have the billiard ball sized business and of its distinguished relative, the Expert Mouse, it does have something that neither the Expert nor most other trackballs can claim: a really excellent scroll wheel. The scroll wheel on the Orbit is a ring around its standard-sized ball. You rotate this ring like a steering wheel in order to scroll. This feature is tremendously well-built, and in my experience, it does not tend to start grinding, skipping, and otherwise malfunctioning in its old age.

If there is a drawback to the Kensington Orbit, for me at least, it would be the fact that its primary click button is intended to be operated with the thumb. There is by no means universal agreement on whether or not the thumb should be utilized like this, but my own very strongly held opinion is that it should not. That said, I have a family member who has used the Orbit as her primary pointing device for years, and she couldn’t be happier with it.

The RollerMouse Red, my hands-down favorite of the Contour lineup.

RollerMouse

When you first look at a Contour RollerMouse, your initial reaction will probably be “that ain’t no mouse.” (Or it might be “that isn’t a mouse,” if you do not hail from Flyover Country like me.) The RollerMouse is a somewhat weird yet very wonderful new approach to mousing. It really works more like a trackball than a mouse, only a trackball that is made in the shape of a knobby rubber rolling pin. It might at first look difficult to control the mouse pointer with this device, but over and over again, users try it and immediately take to it like bureaucrats to red tape.

The RollerMouse Free2 (top) is both smaller and thinner than the Pro.

There are three different types of RollerMouse available: Red, Free, and Pro. The Pro is the “legacy” version, and you can pretty much forget it unless you happen to have a very low keyboard tray that requires a very high palm rest. Even if you do, you will still probably do better with the RollerMouse Red, which is almost as thick as the Pro, and beats it all to smithereens in every other area.

The Red was introduced in 2013, and represents a quantum leap forward in RollerMouse technology. Where the previous versions had a problem with “running out of screen,” the RollerMouse Red almost never hits its physical limits when moving the pointer. You can use it like a trackball, with multiple monitors, without undue fear of bumping one end or the other while working.

The third sibling in this lineup, the Free, is a decent device in its own right, but the slightly lower price does not compensate for the missing benefits of the Red. Choose the Free only if you need a very thin-bodied RollerMouse – typical for higher work surfaces.

If you can afford it, the RollerMouse Red may be the single best all-around pointing device available today. However, affording it is an issue for some people; the base unit costs $265 at the time of this writing – more if you choose the ArmSupport Red accessory.

Still reading? If you’re desperate, the Last Chance Cafe is just ahead….

Alternative Technologies

Penclic

If the DXT mouse mimics the feel and performance of a stylus as much as possible while still remaining a mouse, the Penclic design explores the same idea without any restriction on the resulting shape. I always describe the Penclic as being like a pen stuck or hinged to its inkwell, with the inkwell being the base of the mouse and the part that contains the optical tracking sensors. The operational buttons in scroll we are on the “barrel” portion of the Penclic.

This part, I might add, is much improved in the second-generation of the Penclic mouse. Previously, there were more buttons, but the buttons were less useful because they were of the small and difficult to press variety. Now there are just too big ones, but they are easy to press – assuming you take time to adjust the pen for your “writing” position by rotating the barrel against its base. This rotation is not exactly intuitive, or else I am just stupid. When I reviewed mine, I simply did not realize that the barrel was capable of rotating. This put my hand in a rather awkward position for clicking, that problem was quickly resolved when I figured out the rotation part and adjusted it to my preferences.

Penclic is not as ultra-precise as a stylus, but it is at least as precise as any mouse on the market, ergonomic or not. It is extremely adjustable, and the pen grip provides a different experience that many users will appreciate.

If you are looking for a basic mouse that won’t cost you the Earth but will provide a bit more support for your wrists while working, then this option from AmazonBasics is a good choice. It is a wireless mouse with a 33-foot range, which pretty much works as plug and go with any Windows computer. Unfortunately, it is not so simple with Mac.

It uses just 1 AA battery for power. While this is cheap to replace, you can find yourself with sluggish responsiveness as the battery comes to the end of life.

The mouse also lets you limit side-to-side wrist movements as much as possible by offering other navigation options, including forward and back thumb buttons and a fast-scrolling, clickable wheel. While this is not as good for your wrists as a vertical mouse and may take some getting used to, if used right, it can alleviate a lot of wrist strain.

The optical sensor should work well on most surfaces, so there is no reason to bang it around to get it working. The contours are designed to sit comfortably in the hand.

There are lots of funky colors available, so you can feel in style while getting a little bit of extra ergonomic support for your mouse wrist.

If you really want to look after your wrists while working, you should be using a vertical mouse. This means that you move your wrist in a healthier up and down motion, rather than an unnatural side-to-side motion that can quickly result in repetitive strain.

This affordable, ergonomic vertical mouse lets you do just that. It has all the functionality of a familiar mouse, just tipped up to the side (so you will need to choose between a left- or right-handed mouse). The thumb grip on the back offers maximum comfort and control.

Wireless, you can keep your mouse wherever is comfortable for you, while the strong optic sensor and 2.4G wireless connection means you shouldn’t sacrifice on performance. It is simple to use with just plug and go on Windows, but unfortunately, it does not have the same simple compatibility with Mac. The mouse itself is powered by 2 AAA batteries, which aren’t expensive to replace but may not last long with significant use.

The mouse is designed to save power, so it cuts off power after being left idle for eight minutes. But you only need to click one of the buttons to bring it back to life.

If you are looking to upgrade to a vertical mouse for the sake of your wrists, and you want something wireless yet affordable, then this reliable model from Anker is an excellent first choice.

Hi, I'm Kealoha, an American engi-nerd. I've designed dozens of software systems for Fortune 1000 companies worldwide and institutions like MIT’s Digital Media Lab. I started to get carpal tunnel syndrome early in my career and a total switch to ergo products has completely eliminated any pain or discomfort despite decades of crazy hours behind screens. I hope you too weave in a bit of ergo into your lives.

Ergonomic Categories

Pages

Independence & Affiliate Links

AllThingsErgo.com independently reviews ergonomic products and does not receive any financial compensation from manufacturers other than free or reduced price samples. AllThingsErgo.com participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.